Mortgage Rates Hold Steady After Last Week’s Big Drop

After posting their biggest drop in a decade last week, mortgage rates remain at multi-month lows—and borrowers are rushing to take advantage.The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.08 percent this week, Freddie Mac reports in its weekly mortgage market survey. Mortgage applications surged 18.6 percent last week as borrowers locked in lower financing costs, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports.

© Witthaya Prasongsin/Moment/Getty Images

“Purchase mortgage application demand saw the second highest weekly increase over the last year, and thanks to a spike in refinancing activity, overall mortgage demand rose to the highest level since the fall of 2016,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “While the housing market has faced many headwinds the last few months, it sailed through the turbulence to calmer seas with demand buttressed by a strong labor market and low mortgage rates. The benefits of the decline in mortgage rates that we’ve seen this year will continue to unfold over the next few months due to the lag from changes in mortgage rates to market sentiment and ultimately home sales.”

Freddie Mac reports the following national average mortgage rates for the week ending April 4:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 4.08 percent, with an average 0.5 point, rising from last week’s 4.06 percent average. Last year at this time, 30-year rates averaged 4.40 percent.
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.56 percent, with an average 0.4 point, dropping from last week’s 3.57 percent average. A year ago, 15-year rates averaged 3.87 percent.
• 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 3.66 percent, with an average 0.4 point, falling from last week’s 3.75 percent average. A year ago, 5-year ARMs averaged 3.62 percent.